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Friday, February 27, 2009

I'm a little late with this, but Indy has been sick so I've been otherwise occupied. He's much better now though so I'm back to blogging. On Tuesday, we went to downtown Heidelberg for the Fasching parade. It was cold and a little drizzle-y but we didn't mind. We were off to have fun. M even skipped work. Shhhhhh. We hopped on a stassenbahn (street car) and headed down to the Bizmarkplatz. The parade wouldn't start for about an hour, so we walked over to this charming little place and bought some cotton candy for Indy. He doesn't get a lot of sweets and it was a holiday so I figured it was no big deal.

Of course I didn't realize it would be bigger than his head. He was of course dressed up in his Indiana Jones costume. Are you surprised? Me neither.

M got a HUGE cheese pretzel and I got a salted pretzel. I'm not about to let a picture of that be taken though.

Indy with cotton candy all over his face and sugar coursing through his veins.

Me, putting my gloves on. I was cold! I'm not sure what was up with my hair, but it was rather windy.

While we waited for the parade to start (read: guarding our place against the barricade) we looked around at all the costumes. Germans don't really celebrate Halloween (except a few living around American bases) but they dress up for Fasching like it's Halloween. Strange.

I have no idea what this is:

Groovy!

The crowd down the hauptstrasse:

Aren't these kids cute?

Kangaroo Jack?Ummmmm.........

I don't know what these women were drinking from those cups, but they were having a grand time.

Oh, the Parade starts! Look, it's Perkeo! He was a dwarf and court jester at the castle in the early 1700's. He liked to drink wine. A lot. Oh, and at the HD parade, they yell Hi-yo! If you want throws that's what you have to say. Except they draw out the yo part so it's more like Hi-Yooooooooooooooooooo!

See this guy? He's a Polezei (policeman) and he was standing right next to us. He was a target for all the drunk paraders. They kept giving him stuff and he would turn around and hand it to Indy. Awesome.

Here he is being accosted by some drunk revelers.

Confetti is very big at Fasching. Here's M being liberally doused in it by a Black Forest creature.

There were lots of flags and bands. They're very into flag waving over here.

Here's our Polezei fending them off again.

The pass out shots along the parade route!

I don't know what this is, but he's very red. And yellow. And drunk.

Scary!

Look, more shots!

There were about 6 SMART cars in the parade. I just love them! These people are advocating saving the polar bears habitat. I can get behind that. Look how tiny that car is though! A polar bear would crush it!

Uh-oh, here we go again! I think this "lady" needs to shave. Look at Mr. Polezei, being so serious. Lighten up! It's Fasching.

If alcohol isn't to your liking, maybe you'd prefer some stew? Isn't that an odd thing to hand out?

Big furry things!

Still fighting off the ladies.

Hi-yoooooooooo!

The parade lasted a little over an hour and a half. It was so much fun. The transport systems, which were shut down during the parade) wouldn't be running again for another half hour, and would be PACKED, so we decided to walk home. It's about 3 miles and it was very, very cold. About half way home we stopped off at a small confectionery shop and had some pastries and hot drinks. This is what Indy picked:

I forgot to take a pic of mine before digging in. It was delicious though. Chocolate cake, cherries, cream and a layer of dark chocolate cake. Yum! M's was gone before I could get a pic of his. He had apple torte. Also delicious (I snagged a bite before he ate it all).

Hey, look, there's me in the mirror! I was taking a pic of Indy, but he moved and was blurry. My reflection in the mirror turned out nicely though.

And that concluded Fasching. I actually took a ton of pics on the walk home (of some reall unusual stuff), but I'll save those for another day. I hope you enjoyed your peek into the German Mardi Gras!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Do you celebrate Mardi Gras? We do! My family is all from Mobile, AL, which is the original home of Mardi Gras (take that New Orleans). Our parades are not as famous, but they are just as fun. No, more fun!My mom (Gigi) can't stand the thought of Indy missing out on the fun and shipped 2 huge boxes full of Mardi Gras stuff for us to have a party and our own parade. This really meant a lot of work for me (something I'm not into unless it involves paint and/or Swedish furniture). We had a party with our neighbors and Indy and his friends had a parade (mercifully short-it was cold out there) outside.

Here are a few of the decorations in my house, using some of the millions of beads, masks and doubloons Gigi sent. Of course my favorite thing were the moon pies, a traditional Mardi Gras throw. They are so bad for you, but so, so, so delicious. The fact that this moon pie has remained under glass for more than a week is no small miracle, let me tell you.

My entry table.

I made a king cake for the party. It is supposed to have a small plastic baby inside, but mom forgot to put one in our package. Depending on who you're talking to, the baby has different meanings. Whoever gets the slice with the baby in it a. has good luck all year b. has to throw the next Mardi Gras party or c. has to make the next king cake. Whatever, the cake was delicious. And pretty, don't you think?

Indy was the leader of the parade.

Here's the "crowd" catching beads and moon pies!

The kids all had a great time and after the parade we ate! There were cajun ribs, shrimp, saffron rice with crab, corn, potatoes, and all sorts of other stuff. For desert we had the king cake and a Coca Cola Cake. Yummy! It was loads of fun, especially for those who had never experienced Mardi Gras before. Indy and I are going downtown to experience Fasching, which is the German version of Mardi Gras. Hope you all have a lovley day! I should have photos of it tomorrow so check back!

It's META MONDAY!!!!! Sorry to yell at you, but I'm so excited! I should be homeschooling Indy right now, but I'm slacking and have given him worksheets to do so I can post (and look at all the other cool metas). Bad mommy!

This is our blah bathroom when we moved in back in Oct. It has a strange slatted brown ceiling, boring brown tiles and yucky brown fixtures. Yeah. Also, you may notice the "floating" toilet. Most toilets in Germany seem to just come out of the wall with nothing to hold them up. It's weird. But whatever. Since I have all brown tile, I can't paint! You don't know how much this pains me. Paint is my favorite thing in the whole world. I had to tackle this from another angle.

Here is it today with a beachy theme. And lots of blue accessories.

I found the cabinet at my favorite place (IKEA!) in the Fundgrube section. It was in a display that they took apart and couldn't sell it for full price. Lucky me! It was originally 109 Euro (about $140) and was marked down to 69,90 Euro ($90). They were running a special (to empty out the Fundgrube) and had it marked down another 15 Euro. I have an IKEA Family card (of course I do!) and they were running another special and anyone with a card got an extra 25% off! It cost me 41 Euro (about $52). I was so excited! Isn't it lovely?

Now, for the historical/patriotic bit. We have these ugly brown shelves over the toilet (the silver thing at the bottom of the photo is the flushing mechanism, BTW) and I needed something for them. When M went to Normandy last month, he took a ton of amazing photos (with MY camera) and brought back sand from the beaches. I printed off the pics on a heavy weight paper and popped them into some frames. Put the sand in the some pretty little jars and tagged them with the beach they came from (Utah and Omaha beaches) and started layering. I learned about the layering from The Nester. The dark colored shells and rocks also came from Normandy. The others are just random shells we've colleceted here and there. The branches came from a tree outside.

This is the top of the IKEA cabinet.

And this is the top of medicine cabinet. The plate got broken in a move , so I put it on top of the cabinet (you can't see the break from below). The photo is of Indy at Dauphin Island when he was 3. It was the first time he'd ever been to the beach. The lifesaver came from Hobby Lobby (I miss you HL!) a few years ago on clearance. It was originally burgundy and cream, but I painted over the burgundy. The plants are actually P.O.O.P.I.E.S.

And that concludes this weeks metamorphosis. Now I have to get busy so I'll have something to show next week! The pressure!Thanks for stopping by!